CHIMAIRA VIDEO! CHIMAIRA TOUR! CHIMAIRA SMASH!!!

Chimaira have released a video for “Year of the Snake,” one of my favorite songs from their new album, The Age of Hell. It’s a performance video, but it was directed by Todd Bell, which means it’s, like, a trillion times better than the vast majority of all other performance videos. (The slo-mo mic swinging is especially bad-ass.) Perhaps even more importantly, though, it’s the fans’ first chance to hear an awesome new Chimaira track. I mean, that section right after the second chorus? TOTAL ELEPHANTS MARCHING MADNESS. That thirty-seven seconds of music alone should be enough to make your day.

Interesting side-note about the video: earlier this week, I interviewed vocalist Mark Hunter, and he told me the following about the shoot for the clip:

“We got together to shoot the DVD and video, and we had never played together as a band before. And here we are, ‘Oh, go ahead and shoot a video now and do a photo shoot.’ It felt kind of strange. But the funny thing is, none of us could resist… as soon as everyone got there, they instantly set up their gear, and we were playing within a few hours.”

So that’s pretty cool.

But wait! There’s even more Chimaira news!

The band has also now announced, via their newly redesigned website, a U.S. headlining tour that will start in October. Support will come from Impending Doom, Revocation, and Rise to Remain. Now, I’m not gonna bullshit you and pretend I’ve never written anything negative about Impending Doom and Rise to Remain; I just don’t happen to be a fan of either of those bands.

But I am SUCH a fan of Chimaira and Revocation that it doesn’t matter. They can stick this asshole in the middle of the bill for all I care, I’m still gonna see this tour. I’ve been made to sit through way worse bands than Impending Doom… that’s why venues have bars.

ANYWAY, there have been no dates announced for the tour yet, but we’ll let you know as soon as there are. In the meantime, do not forge that The Age of Hell comes out this Tuesday, August 16, via eOne. And I should have the complete interview with Mark Hunter up sometime next week.

-AR